Chapter 14: The Mysterious Ghost Market of Youming
The qingmu spirit pearl in Lu Qingyang's palm flickered with a faint green phosphorescence, casting eerie, shifting shadows on the cave walls.
He squatted beside the unconscious purple-robed Cultivator, dipping his fingertip into the blood seeping from the man's wound to draw incomplete runes on a tortoise shell.
Su Li leaned against the rock wall, wiping a crack in her bronze casket, when she suddenly kicked a pebble away.
"Using a living person's essence blood as cinnabar, your greed has truly become more refined."
"Su Xianzi, that's unfair," Lu Qingyang said, casually pulling off the Cultivator's Storage Pouch from his waist.
Three Mid-Grade Spirit Stones clinked into his embrace.
"Last night at the Drunken Immortal Pavilion, I wonder who called the wine laced with soul-bewitching powder 'Moonlit Nectar' and tricked that foolish girl from the Hehuan Sect into exchanging it for the 'Sutra of the Plain Girl'."
As he spoke, he tucked the Spirit Stones into a secret pocket in his trousers, where a 'Universe in a Mustard Seed' talisman, left by the Old Drunkard, was sewn—it could block the detection of Cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage.
Outside the cave, the clanking sound of chains dragging on the ground echoed, and twelve bone lanterns drifted along the underground river.
Each lantern wick was wrapped in a ball of ghostly blue soul fire, illuminating a skeleton with rotting flesh hanging from the bow of the boat.
The skeleton's jawbone opened and closed, emitting a hoarse cry: "Yin Shi San Ke, Youming Crossing opens—"
Lu Qingyang popped a Clear Heart Pill into his mouth and kicked the purple-robed Cultivator into the underground river.
The moment the body touched the water, the river surface became covered with countless carrion fish, which gnawed the body down to bare bones in the blink of an eye.
He turned to Su Li and grinned, "Fairy, after you? The fare for this ferry boat is equivalent to three dragon blood grass."
As he spoke, he pulled out a Yin Qi-stained Jade Slip, which was precisely the 'Taiyi Pavilion Pursuit Order' he had just pilfered from the body.
As the bone boat passed through the Cave, the stalactites hanging from the ceiling suddenly opened thousands of compound eyes.
Su Li's fingertips condensed into an ice frost talisman, but Lu Qingyang pressed her wrist.
"The rule of Youming Crossing is death to those who see light."
Before he finished speaking, a night-luminescent pearls in a Loose Cultivator's embrace at the stern of the boat suddenly exploded, and the corpse, bleeding from all seven orifices, was dragged into the underground river by an invisible force, becoming food for the carrion fish.
"We've arrived," the skeleton boatman's jawbone clacked.
The moment the bone boat struck the rock wall, everyone felt as if they had passed through a layer of water film.
Before their eyes, a Ghost Market suddenly appeared, suspended above the earth's magma, where green-faced, fanged vendors were haggling with customers wrapped in bandages.
Lu Qingyang's nostrils flared, and he suddenly tugged Su Li's sleeve, rushing towards the southwest corner.
"Smell that? At least five hundred years old Yin Ming Flower!"
A dwarfish old woman squatted in front of the stall, her wrinkled skin covered in corpse spots.
A pool of black water filled the ceramic pot in front of her, with a completely black flower bud floating on its surface.
As Lu Qingyang squatted down, he deliberately revealed the Taiyi Pavilion token at his waist and gently tapped the rim of the pot three times with his fingertip.
"Granny, this flower... I'm afraid it blooms on the Yellow Springs Road, doesn't it?"
"Youngster, your eyes are sharp."
The old woman bared her toothless mouth, and her cloudy eyes suddenly turned to Su Li.
"If you want to buy the flower, you must exchange it for ten years of this girl's lifespan."
Her five fingers, like withered claws, spread open, and a blood-red contract appeared in her palm.
Lu Qingyang scoffed, then suddenly slammed the 'Taiyi Pavilion Pursuit Order' onto the table.
"What about adding this?"
The moment the Jade Slip touched the table, the portrait of Su Li on the pursuit order suddenly oozed black blood, and the old woman's expression changed dramatically.
Taking advantage of her Divided Soul, Lu Qingyang slipped half a Candle Dragon Incense from his sleeve—this was a soul-bewitching incense refined from a Three-Headed Flood Dragon's inverse scale; Cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage would become dizzy upon smelling it.
By the time the Yin Ming Flower was in his hand, Su Li's Sword was already at his neck.
"You knew my identity all along?"
The Sword's edge cut through his skin, a bead of blood oozing out, but Lu Qingyang chuckled and pulled out a rouge box.
"Yesterday, when I was tidying up Fairy's bed, I found this under the pillow."
The moment the lid popped open, the gilded small mirror reflected the Taiyi Pavilion brand on Su Li's collarbone, which was gradually fading.
A bell suddenly tolled from the ceiling of the Ghost Market, and all seventy-two soul 引魂 lamps extinguished simultaneously.
Lu Qingyang dragged Su Li into a dark passage, and behind them, screams rose and fell—this was the 'clearing' time for Youming Crossing.
In the darkness, he accurately found the mechanism's pivot point, and the qingmu spirit pearl moved along the rock wall, its light revealing dense nests of spirit-devouring ants.
"May I borrow Fairy's hairpin for a moment?"
Before Su Li could respond, he had already pulled out the Phoenix-headed hairpin and thrown it towards the ant queen.
The startled ant swarm surged like a tide towards the pursuers, gnawing three Taiyi Pavilion deacons down to mere skeletons.
Su Li looked at the residual poison powder on the hairpin and finally realized, "You had already calculated that I would use the Ice Soul Needle for a sneak attack?"
"The feeling is mutual."
Lu Qingyang pulled out a yellowed marriage certificate from the sole of his boot, which was the item Su Li had hidden in her chest binder when she disguised herself and infiltrated the merchant caravan.
"Who would have thought that the traitor wanted by Taiyi Pavilion was actually the fianc2e of the Pavilion Master's direct son?"
As he spoke, his five fingers moved swiftly, using Yin Ming Flower juice to forge a blood covenant mark on the marriage certificate.
The end of the tunnel suddenly opened up, where the earth's magma converged into a lake, and a bronze coffin floated in the center of the lake.
Lu Qingyang pressed the qingmu spirit pearl into the groove of the coffin lid, and the Dragon shadow within the pearl resonated with the runes on the coffin body.
When the coffin lid moved three inches, he suddenly turned around with a shrewd smile.
"Let's agree first, the 'Nine Transformations of the Candle Dragon' inside belongs to me, and that bottle of Nascent Soul pills..."
Before he finished speaking, Su Li's Sword had already unfastened his belt, and twenty-three Storage Pouches clattered to the ground.
She hooked the Jade Slip containing the Yin Ming Flower with her toe, smiling more charmingly than a fox demon.
"Daoist Lu, the funeral money you earned this trip is probably enough to buy half of the Drunken Immortal Pavilion, isn't it?"
She suddenly swung her Sword towards the darkness, and a Loose Cultivator, attempting to pick up a forgotten item, clutched his severed arm and fled, wailing.
The moment the bronze coffin fully opened, nine chains floated up from the bottom of the magma lake.
Lu Qingyang dodged the scorching iron chains, muttering, "I should have stolen Black Heart Tiger's Nine-Ringed Blade earlier..."
Before he finished speaking, Su Li suddenly tore open her clothes, and the Taiyi Pavilion Restriction on her chest transformed into a golden crow, Pounce the chains.
Seizing this opportunity, Lu Qingyang bit his tongue and sprayed essence blood onto the spirit pearl; as the hourglass illusion inverted, the Jade Slip from within the coffin fell into his embrace.
By the time the pursuers' Sword Qi tore through the cave's barrier, the two had already escaped along a branch of the underground river.
Lu Qingyang lay on the driftwood, counting his gains, when he suddenly felt a bellyband Su Li had tucked into his embrace—the jiaoxiao fabric was embroidered with a map of Taiyi Pavilion's secret vault.
He examined it carefully under the moonlight for a while, then turned to the woman who was meditating and called out, "This fabric is too good for underpants; how about I tailor it into a handkerchief for you tomorrow?"
His reply was a sharp Sword Qi that sliced off half of his robe's hem.
Lu Qingyang touched his exposed calf, exclaiming in wonder, "Su Xianzi even remembers the silk socks I just bought yesterday so clearly..."
He suddenly fell silent and retreated swiftly; the spot where he had stood was now riddled with poison needles.
Amidst the surging undercurrents, he hummed a discordant tune, the qingmu spirit pearl spinning in his fingers, leaving a glowing green afterimage, much like the twelve soul 引魂 lamps of Youming Crossing.